The Rebel Witch

Gideon Sharpe sneaks into Prince Soren Nord’s palace intending to kill Rune Winters. He has learned that Rune’s engagement to Soren is meant to win an army for Cressida Roseblood, the exiled witch queen, and he believes that alliance will bring war to the New Republic and restore the terror of witch rule. When Rune flees an engagement recital in tears after hearing Alexander Sharpe’s final song, Gideon corners her alone. Their reunion is bitter and raw. Both still grieve Alex, Gideon’s brother and Rune’s dead fiancé, and both blame the other for betrayal. Gideon cannot bring himself to pull the trigger. Rune fights back, disarms him, and Cressida arrives before he can escape.

Cressida captures Gideon and reveals that she has preserved the bodies of her dead sisters, Analise and Elowyn, and plans to resurrect them using the sacrifice of a close blood relative she believes still exists. She tortures Gideon through the magical brand she once burned into his chest, proving she can still dominate him. Rune, horrified by what Cressida is doing, manipulates Soren into sealing his political alliance with Cressida so he will interrupt the torture. After Cressida leaves, the witch scar artist Ava Saers places Gideon under a command spell. When Rune tries to bluff Ava into leaving, Ava orders Gideon to kill her. Rune shoots Ava instead, breaking the spell, then hides herself and Gideon with Ghost Walker magic and helps him escape Larkmont. Before they part, Gideon tells her that Cressida is hunting a hidden Roseblood relative who could make the resurrection spell possible.

Back in Caelis, Gideon learns his superiors no longer trust him and want another agent to finish the mission, but he defies them. He tracks Rune to a bridal shop, where she surprises him by proposing a temporary truce. She wants him to smuggle her into the New Republic and help free the imprisoned sibyl Aurelia Kantor; in return, she will break her engagement to Soren and destroy his alliance with Cressida. Gideon pretends to agree while secretly planning to arrest her later. When Soren interrupts, Gideon takes Rune hostage to escape, but once outside it becomes clear she has planned everything in advance, including their passage aboard the Arcadia under the cover of being newlyweds, Mr. and Mrs. Sharpe.

The voyage forces them into constant proximity. Police search the ship, Rune uses blood magic and illusion to stay hidden, and Gideon learns that a spy is aboard who may execute Rune on sight. At dinner, Rune reveals she has witch scars and that she stole Cressida’s hair for a summoning spell meant to draw the missing Roseblood heir to her first, so she can warn that person. Gideon suspects former revolutionary ally Abigail Redfern may be the spy, then realizes the crewman William is the real danger. Meanwhile their false marriage begins to expose real desire and old wounds. Gideon kisses Rune to protect her when her glamour falters, but Cressida’s hidden curse activates: skin-to-skin contact with Rune makes Gideon see Cressida and suffer agony. Rune misreads his recoil as disgust. After Gideon confirms the curse by testing it with Abbie, he confronts William, who has threatened Rune, and convinces him to help keep witch-hunting hounds away at port in exchange for time to pursue a broader plan.

Rune overhears enough to know Gideon still intends to betray her eventually, and their trust shatters again. Once they land on the island, Wintersea House is no longer hers, so Gideon hides her in his apartment. Before he can act, the Blood Guard arrests him. Gideon argues before Noah Creed, the new Good Commander, that Rune must be kept alive because Aurelia confirms a hidden fourth Roseblood exists and that this person’s death could resurrect Cressida’s sisters. Noah gives Gideon two days to deliver Rune. Gideon returns to recruit Rune for a rescue: Aurelia will not cooperate unless her daughter Meadow is freed. Together Rune and Gideon rescue Meadow, and during the escape Rune sees a startling vision of Gideon with three children, suggesting a possible future. Gideon is arrested afterward but talks his way back out and brings Aurelia to Rune. Aurelia helps Rune cast a summoning spell using Cressida’s hair, but the ritual seems to fail. Watching secretly, Gideon realizes the truth instead: Rune herself is the missing Roseblood heir.

Rune tries to flee by boat with Aurelia and Meadow, but circumstances force her back toward Larkmont, where she breaks into Cressida’s rooms looking for magic that can help her rescue Gideon. There she discovers the truth about Gideon’s curse: it is a True Love’s Curse, and it hurts him because Rune is his true love. It can only be broken by the sacrificial blood of the victim’s true love. Cressida catches Rune, imprisons and tortures her, and reveals she plans to fake Rune’s death, keep Soren’s army, and later hunt Gideon. While near death, Rune uses her own blood to break and alter the curse, then Seraphine Oakes interrupts and reveals that Rune is Cressida’s sister: the secret daughter of Queen Winoa, stolen at birth and hidden with Kestrel Winters. Rune is kept alive because Cressida now needs her for the resurrection ritual.

While Cressida invades Cascadia with Soren’s fleet, Gideon is freed from prison in the middle of the attack and sees the harbor fall. Cressida claims the palace and begins public terror. Rune, now a prisoner within the new regime, learns more from Seraphine and eventually kills Soren in self-defense when he attacks her. She rescues Harrow from prison, returns to Wintersea for Nan’s spell books, and reunites with Gideon there, only for Noah and Laila Creed to find them. Rune is nearly executed, but Felix secretly helps Gideon escape. Gideon rescues Rune and is badly wounded getting her into the woods. They take shelter with Bartholomew Wentholt and Antonio Bastille, where a fragile coalition begins to form among witches, disillusioned Blood Guard soldiers, Harrow, Juniper Huynh, Seraphine, Laila, and Gideon’s old allies. Rune and Gideon finally confess their love openly, and Rune successfully breaks the curse; touching her no longer harms him. She briefly tries to flee again out of terror of losing him, but when she sees him about to be executed at a train yard, she returns and saves him. On the train that carries them away, Rune asks Gideon to marry her, and he agrees.

The coalition learns that Cressida has hidden Analise and Elowyn beneath a magically protected pool at the Crossroads and will soon renew the preservation spell. Rune, Gideon, Seraphine, and Antonio ride there, but it is a trap. Cressida has captured Harrow and Juniper, taken Seraphine and Antonio hostage, and surrounded the gorge with soldiers and witches. Realizing Cressida needs her alive for resurrection while Gideon will be killed, Rune makes the only choice she believes will deny Cressida victory. She asks Gideon to shoot her through the heart. He does, and Rune dies in his arms, ruining Cressida’s immediate plan.

Rune’s final spell has done more than break Gideon’s curse: it leaves him impossible for Cressida to injure. As Cressida’s attacks fail and her followers begin to splinter, Seraphine reveals her true identity as Wisdom, one of the Ancients. Using Cressida’s blood and Rune’s spell book, Wisdom kills Cressida and transfers her life into Rune, resurrecting her. Cressida, Analise, and Elowyn are then burned to ash so they can never return. Seraphine departs the mortal world after telling Rune that Kestrel would be proud.

In the aftermath, Laila seizes the Rookery in Gideon’s name, imprisons Noah, and outlaws witch hunts and purgings. Three months later, Cascadia is rebuilding under a new political order shared by witches and non-witches. Rune has been elected to the new House of Commons, though public life still frightens her more than battle ever did. Gideon, now her husband, steadies her. Together they step forward to help build the world they nearly died trying to imagine.